There is a building at West Warren Avenue at Grand River Avenue that at one time featured some of Detroit’s finest graffiti. Painted on the walls of that building were large, multi-colored masterpieces put up by graffiti artists Sintex, Deco 23, the TST crew, and other well-known street painters using aerosol paint cans. I’ve seen the eye-catching, engaging art on three sides of the building for well over a year, and I always stop to study the complexity of the pieces when riding my bicycle through that part of town.
I was riding past that building a few weeks ago and didn’t recognize it. All the brilliant wall art found on that outside gallery had been painted over! The art pieces weren’t vandalized by others spraying a quick black and white tag over them, nor were they covered by newer, 3-dimensional appearing graffiti masterpieces. Unfortunately, they were totally gone because the building had been painted a dark brown color from top to bottom.
Thinking about the intriguing graffiti that was once there and why it may have been painted over, I decided to investigate. So the other day I went by there to see what I could find out. Located right behind the building that once featured the stunning wall art is a business called Architectural Salvage Warehouse. It’s an interesting non-profit organization that sells salvaged artifacts, building materials, etc. from old homes slated to be torn down in Detroit and the surrounding communities. It happened to be open, so I stopped by and asked one of the staff members what happened to the graffiti art on the building in front.
The person I spoke with at the salvage warehouse speculated that the building owner is preparing it for a possible sale. He also thought the owner might be getting sick of looking at the graffiti that once covered his place, even though he allowed the artists to use the building as a pallet for their colorful work. Regardless, the building that was once adorned with some of Detroit’s best graffiti art is now painted dark brown.
Here are a few of the beautiful graffiti art pieces that are found under the brown paint on that building. Some I’ve posted in earlier blog entries.
Check out the murals at Garage Cultural http://www.garagecultural.org/ 3439 Livernois & Otis, Detroit MI 48210 and also on the outside of the Hacienda tortilla factory on W. Vernor at Livernois! It was done by artists with youth and are terrific!
Hi Maestrasaha – Thanks for the info. I’ll check the work on my travels. Much appreciated.
Charlie